Totally Stockholm 1
Issue #2 Issue #1 26 27 26 Issue #1 – The Last Su
pper How do you best begin something? Well, you look towards the ultimate end. In our very first issue, we rounded up five of Stockholm’s most acclaimed chefs and asked them what they would want to eat, just before their time ran out. That one last indulgence, the last supper. Our cover star was Jacob Holmström from Gastrologik - we had his head on a plate, while we pictured Carina Brydling drowned in milk and Johan Jureskog hanging from a meat hook among the carcasses in a slaughterhouse. Sayan Isaksson was wrapped in a giant sushi roll, and as he has recently opened up another great restaurant concept in Nour, we called him up. You have launched quite a few restaurant concepts now, always Asian in theme to a certain extent, but always with a new twist. This time it’s influenced by Nordic contemporary cuisine but with strong inspiration from Japan, and also the rest of Asia. And even the Middle East perhaps? As it is all about style, it’s difficult to put a label on what we do, though of course it was easier with Isaan at Berns, which had obvious links to Thailand. But with Nour it’s more personal, a style I have developed through the years, where the Japanese inspiration is more subtle, and more me. But if you look at restaurants in Stockholm they are all a bit Japanese, for example with miso, their own soy sauce and so on. How have the first months at Nour been? Do you think the guests experience the feeling of coming to a friend’s house for dinner, which I heard you had as an aim? We had a nice start with great guests and that feeling of coming to someone’s home is surely there. We are going through rough times now with covid-19, but I can feel that this restaurant is what I really want to do. When we did the first issue of Totally Stockholm, we asked what you wanted for your last supper. You said “A huge amount of Nigiri sushi, 140 pieces, made by a Japanese sushi master and lashings of green tea, served under a blooming cherry tree on the slopes of Mount Fuji in the company of Jimi Hendrix and your near and dear”. Do you stand by this request? Absolutely, plus some 12-year-old Nikka whisky before I go. This was back in 2012, how has Stockholm’s restaurant scene evolved since then? There has been fantastic development, driven by talented people. I also like that this generation has sharp elbows, and don’t stand for any bullshit. Of course I disassociate with what has been revealed about the restaurant industry in the media lately, but for me it has always been a given to create and work in environments where there is zero tolerance for any sort of sexism or discrimination. Issue #2 – Take a Seat - The Chairs of Stockholm In our most ambitious story ever, we set out to scrutinize the respective chairs of 50 of Stockholm’s best restaurants. It was no small feat to track down the origins, the name, designer, producer, the material and the year made for all these chairs (especially with some chairs like Den Gyllene Freden’s, which were a few hundred years old). Then we photographed them all, had two furniture designers comment on them, and asked the restaurants to give us the signature dish you were most likely to enjoy while sitting on them. It was an arduous task, but it turned out pretty well in the end. And its importance - the chair, not the article – cannot be understated. To a restaurant, the chair is probably the most vital part of its interior design. It works as a statement, a symbol of what the restaurant stands for. In Stockholm, where the average person has a cultivated understanding of design, the chair represents more than just a place to sit. 9 25 24